Resistance to desires

"what is wrong with me?"

"why do I keep having these desires?"

"when will this go away?"

"will these desires be around forever?"

"how do I get rid of these desires?"

"I will just look once... this will be the last time, that is okay right?"

This is how the addicted part of the mind (APOTM) talks. Unfortunately, most people are taught, on some level, that experiencing desires is a bad thing. And they are taught that if they experience desires they need to push them away and get rid of them.

As such, most people never experience the real benefits of overcoming an addiction. There is a right way and a wrong way to stop engaging in compulsive behaviours.

A short-term approach and a long-term, sustainable one. You can either continue to feel disempowered, scared of desires, and living in fear of relapse. Or you can accept, willingly accept the temporary discomfort of desires, moment by moment, and embrace in a new reality of experiencing desire, without acting on it. When you do this, in the right way, repeatedly over and over you can build self-trust and confidence as your whole paradigm on addiction recovery completely shifts. A lot of professionals will try and convince you, with their strategies based in helplessness, that you need to avoid the desire.

Below is a video where we analyse one doctor's porn addiction recovery advice and highlight the inadequacies of advice so based in helpless thinking.